The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-06-16
COL. 1NGsRsoLL's JUG OF WHISKY.
How He Sent a Present and Got Tenn
perance Lecture in Reply.
From the Ne,c York Sun.

perance Lecture in Reply.
From, the Ne,c York Sun.
My DEAR CoLoNEL-.You remember, I
presume, once sending your friend jug of
chronic whisky bearing this label of praise
to his enemy:
I send you some of the most wonderful whisky
that ever drove a skeleton from the feast or
painted landscapes in the brain of man. It is
the mingled souls of wheat and corn. In it you
will find the sunshine and, the shadow that
chased each other over the billowy fields, the
breath of June, the carol of the lark, the dews
of night, the. wealth of summer. and autumn's
rich content, all golden with imprisoned light.
Drink it, and you will hear the voice of men
and maidenS singing the Harvest Home, :"
mingled with the laughter of children Drink
it, and you will feel within your blood the star
led dawns, the dreamy. tawny dusks of many
perfect days For forty years this liquid joy
has been within the happy slaves of oak, long
ing to touch the lips of man.
OF course, Colonel you will be glad to
learn how it and he took to each other
Well, believing you, he drank of that jug
till ''the skeleton it drove from the feast"
came and sat in ugly profile on his hearth
stone--drank till the landscapes in blossom
on the walls of his home he pllfered and
pawned to paint your arid Landscapes in
his brain" 1t was 1.-The mingled souls of
wheat and corn" you told HIM; but ere he
luctant kernel garnered for growing chill
dren, and it conjured 'the mingled souls of
evil-doing and pauperhving to drive out
the radiant spirits of manhood and plen-
teous life.
Still he hoped, for you told him he'd find
in it sunshine; yet in it he found only raven
shadows, each Tapping wings blacker than
its elder ADMINISTRATORS that chased each
other with buzzard greed, for both carcass
thei oil tboa,,
of the great armchair of rich content up to
the rough pine stool in the dismal garrett,
while close beside him they chased into that
NANCY shelter the last of one loving woman
with the broken soul, her fever-pinched
young John and little starveling Mary III
it, too, he found, not your pansy breath of
June, the carol of the lark, and dews of night
that kiss the coming corn, but the stark-mad
blast of December, the bark of the wolf at
his door, and the moldering damps of the
night of despair.
Then you sang 30 him. of the wealth Ct
summer and autumn's rich content that
should Irvine the neck of your Bourbon
chalice, but it twined for him a barren sum-
mer to an angry winter and rags that knit
themselves together in imprisoned" dark
ness 4--
Yet the friend of your fascinating enmity
drank on till, down in the fostering cellar
and the crawling sawdust, he loafed and
listened for your Harvest Home" but
heard only your brutal men and maidens
vendible utter maudlin blasphemy of the
Master, and caught the melody of their
shame in brace of uncean song. Why, sir,
he drank till the heavenly laughter of little
children round his knee died away into rest
less moaning-died into the dying childs
whispered wall for bread
Drank! Yea, fast and deep he drank your
dreamy potion off, till deep and fast within
his blood he felt, never one startled dawn,
but forever life eclipsed, the sun of the
future always setting, sinking through the
tawny dusks of the clouded mind toward
that midnight which foreteils no day. into
the final gloom of the drunkard-the dam
nation that's endless in its desolation!
There, declining foe, you'll find your
friend, and the days of his homage to your
deformed genius being spent, he'll gather
courage to say: "Col Ingersoll, if from out
thy earthen caSk hath crept unto me one
liquid joy, it is that here look upon its
giver eternally kenneled beside the offspring
of his gift, thy soul weary, scorched and
quenchless messmate at the feast of thy be-
trayal-the host that wolshiped thee and
and the feast whence the skeleton shall
never DEPART"
Sir Robert in ungrateful Requirement of
many unstable souls and the crush of sweet
homes only soberness can build, none-no,
not one-hath so measured up to the warped,
unwashable Crosby as hast thou in thy
stanza of prose accrediting with life the
-begetting sweat of the still.
JAMES CLEMENT AMBROSE.
EVANSTON, ILL., June g.